1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a hand-operated control lever release apparatus for a transmission of a vehicle, which can manually unlock a transmission control lever in order to actuate the movement of the vehicle in the event of an emergency.
2. Background Art
A vehicle is equipped with a transmission to enable smooth parking or shifting of gears. To release movement of a vehicle in the event of an emergency, a transmission needs to be unlocked from parking (P) level.
FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a conventional apparatus for manually unlocking a vehicle transmission lever.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional release apparatus is applied to a transmission mechanism using a cable. More specifically, in case where it is not possible to be unlocked from P position such as when a failure occurs when a transmission lever is at P position or for other reasons, the transmission lever can be unlocked from the P position by rotating a hand-operated release lever 20 mounted on a housing 10, which in turn rotates a lock cam 30 to push away a solenoid 40. Upon unlocking, the transmission lever becomes movable. That is, as the transmission lever and the cable move, a control lever for a transmission coupled to a distal end of the cable can shift from P position to Neutral (N) or Drive (D) position, thereby actuating the movement of the vehicle.
An electronic transmission typically starts to operate upon detecting a signal unique for each shift position and applying the signal thereto. For example, a signal generated at P position may be transmitted to a transmission so that a control lever can rotate and be locked at P position.
However, the electronic transmission has a drawback in that a vehicle cannot move in the event of an emergency such as battery discharge or software failure because the control lever fails to be unlocked from P position. Furthermore, as the electronic transmission has a structure in that a transmission lever is not coupled to a control lever for the transmission via a cable, the control lever may not be released from P position even though the transmission lever is free to move, which prevents movement of the vehicle.
Accordingly, there is a need for a hand-operated control lever release apparatus for an electronic transmission which can manually unlock a transmission control lever from P position in order to actuate movement of the vehicle in the event of an emergency.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.